Bingo

“ One reason was that Bingo could not jump as high as Topsy. A little dog never can jump as high as a kitten. They are not made that way. So when Bingo wanted to climb he had to scramble up with his paws and he always knocked against something or other which would come down with a crash and a bang and somebody would say, “Oh, you bad Bingo, you have broken something again!” ”

“ I must say I got a bit fed with young Bingo in the next few days. It’s all very well for a fellow with a big winner in his stable to exercise proper care, but in my opinion Bingo overdid it. The blighter’s mind appeared to be absolutely saturated with racing fiction; and in stories of that kind, as far as I could make out, no horse is ever allowed to start in a race without at least a dozen attempts to put it out of action. He stuck to Harold like a plaster. Never let the unfortunate kid out of his sight. ”

“ In any case conceive one's pride in realising suddenly that one has been called after a province and not after a poodle. It has determined Bingo unalterably to grow up in the right way.
You have Bingo now definitely a Pekinese. That being so, I may refer to his ancestors, always an object of veneration among these Easterns. I speak of (hats off, please!) Ch. Goodwood Lo.
Of course you know (I didn't myself till last week) that "Ch." stands for "Champion." On the male side Champion Goodwood Lo is Bingo's great-great-grandfather. On the female side the same animal is Bingo's great-grandfather. ”

“ As for Lilian, I believed I saw that she soon sus [ 9] pected the state of my feelings towards her and was not displeased by it. I looked forward with some hopefulness to a day when I could declare myself with no fear of a repulse.
But it was a serious obstacle in my path that I could not secure Bingo's good opinion on any terms. The family would often lament this pathetically themselves. 'You see,' Mrs. Currie would observe in apology, 'Bingo is a dog that does not attach himself easily to strangers'—though for that matter I thought he was unpleasantly ready to attach himself to me. ”

“ CHAPTER III AUNT AGATHA SPEAKS HER MIND
I suppose in the case of a chappie of really fine fibre and all that sort of thing, a certain amount of gloom and anguish would have followed this dishing of young Bingo’s matrimonial plans. I mean, if mine had been a noble nature, I would have been all broken up. But, what with one thing and another, I can’t say I let it weigh on me very heavily. The fact that less than a week after he had had the bad news I came on young Bingo dancing like an untamed gazelle at Ciro’s helped me to bear up.
A resilient bird, Bingo. He may be down, but he is never out. ”

“ A complete inventory of all such gaming supplies shall be maintained by the organization on the premises where the gaming is being conducted. C. No qualified organization shall sell any instant bingo, network bingo, pull tabs, or seal cards to any individual younger than 18 years of age. No individual younger than 18 years of age shall play or redeem any instant bingo, network bingo, pull tabs, or seal cards. ”

“ The wood-contract was thrown up, all friendly relations ceased, and to this day there is no county big enough to hold the rival factions which were called at once into existence and to arms by Curley's dying yell.
It was months before Bingo really recovered from the poison. We believed indeed that he never again would be the sturdy old-time Bingo. But when the spring came he began to gain strength, and bettering as the grass grew, he was within a few weeks once more in full health and vigor to be a pride to his friends and a nuisance to his neighbors. ”

“ Prizes given by any nonprofit organization for the playing of bingo games shall not exceed the cash amount or gifts of equivalent value set by the Legislature during any bingo session during any calendar week. ”

“ Nurse was as busy as a bee endeavoring by every means she could devise or adopt from the suggestions of the stewardesses, who showed a good deal of interest in her and her charge, to alleviate the sufferings of Bingo. I have seen that little woman stand for an hour on the wet planking, 9holding a six-foot deck-swab soaked with eau-de-Cologne to Bingo’s forehead.... ”

“ No person under the age of 19 shall be permitted to play any game or games of bingo, unless accompanied by a parent or guardian; nor shall any person under the age of 19 be permitted to conduct or assist in the conduct of any game of bingo ”

“ If the blindfolded girl can identify her captive they exchange places, and the game goes on as before. The Forest of Dean and the Earls Heaton versions are played the same as the Lancashire. In the West Cornwall version, as seen played in 1884, a ring is formed, into the middle of which goes a child holding a stick; the others with joined hands run round in a circle, singing the verses. When they have finished singing they cease running, whilst the one in the centre, pointing with his stick, asks them in turn to spell Bingo. If they all spell it correctly they again move round singing ”

“ This was my first visit to the slope, you know and, although I'd often heard vaguely that young 'uns, playing draw for beans or tin tags, once in a while shoved the joker into the pack for the fun of the thing. I, of course, never dreamed that rational adult human beings in any quarter of the earth could have the nerve to inflict such a dismal outrage upon the noble game of draw as to slap the joker into a poker deck. But I found out different the very first game of draw that I sat into out in San Francisco. ”

“ It was a strangely silent crowd, sitting or standing with eyes intent upon the tables, the only sounds being those incident to the game: the voices of the croupiers inviting their patrons to place their bets, the quick whir of the ivory ball about the rim of the roulette wheel, the warning that no more bets could be placed, the rattle of the ball falling into a compartment, the announcement of the winning number, and the clatter of the little rakes pulling in the bank’s winnings. ”

“ The young folk only wonder who those ‘funny old buffers’ are, and they wonder even more when the funny old buffers insist on joining in a game of fives on the billiard-table, and the room resounds with bony noises as their hands hit the flying ball. ”

“ This conviction so possessed me that I found myself for days after peering into Bing's face, watching for its repetition—so much so that the professor asked me with a laugh:
"Has Mr. Bing hypnotized you as badly as he has the ladies? They hang on his every word. Curious study of the effect of mind on matter, isn't it?"
The second time I caught the strange flash was BEFORE he had told his story—when his admonitory glance—his polite way of compelling attention—was sweeping the table. ”

“ So completely has gambling got the better of dancing, that at a private Ball, last week, a gentleman asking a young lady, from Bath, to dance the next two dances, she very ingenuously replied, ‘Yes, if you will play two rubbers at Casino.’”
Enough has been written to give us a good insight into female gambling. I will now continue with that of the men, and first let us have a description of a gaming house from the Times of 14th Feb. ”

“ I have seen a diabolo player who was beautiful to follow, and a juggler who placed two billiard cues end to end on his forehead, threw a ball and caught it at the top of the cues, then dislodged the ball and put it into play with three others. This extraordinary mixture of good and dull things, this lack of character, makes the circus easy to like and useless to think about. ”

“ There was a game similar to chess in which the chess men were glass, ivory or metal colored. Dice were in great use and gambling with dice prospered in spite of laws against it. Under the empire there arose an entertainment similar to a [Pg 254] lottery, in which tickets were distributed free to the guests or sold to them and a drawing was made for the prizes. At their banquets and elsewhere the guests were entertained with musicians, mimics, dancers, jugglers, acrobats, rope-dancers, and other kinds of performers. ”

“ It will be seen that the ladies are playing with cards and dice, and that the ale jug is introduced as an accompaniment. In fact we must look upon it as a tavern party, and the round table, as far as we can judge, appears to be fixed in the ground. The same book furnishes us with an illustration (cut No. 309) , in which two gamblers are quarrelling over a game at backgammon. A child is here the jug-bearer or guardian of the liquor. Our cut No. 310 represents a gambling scene of a rather later period, taken from Whitney’s “Emblems,” printed in 1586; dice are here the implements of play. ”

“ Next to the passion for ardent spirits is the passion for gambling. Their common game of chance is played with beans, or with small bones, painted of different colours; and these beans have been as fatal as ever were the dice in Christendom. They will gamble away even their blankets and moccasins; and while the game lasts not only the players but the lookers-on, are in a perfect ecstacy of suspense and agitation. ”

“ BILL WOULD GAMBLE. One of Bill's most striking peculiarities was his love for gambling. He loved gambling for its own sake, just as the moralists love virtue for its own sake. No man that I ever came in contact with ever struck me as being so fond of gambling. I have seen him give parties two points in casino and seven-up, and they would play marked cards on him. ”

“ So he went day by day to the gambling hall, and playing with his dice, won great sums of money, and lived at his ease, feasting himself and others. But one night, when he was sitting among the gamblers in the gambling hall, throwing the dice, he heard behind him a noise of shuffling. ”

“ But “billiards” and “ten-pins” are not true “gambling games.” The first is patronised rather as an elegant amusement, and the latter as an excellent exercise. Cards and dice are the real weapons of the “sportsman,” but particularly the former. Besides the English games of whist and cribbage, and the French games of “vingt-un,” “rouge-et-noir,” etcetera, the American gambler plays “poker,” “euchre,” “seven-up,” and a variety of others. In New Orleans there is a favourite of the Creoles called “craps,” a dice game, and “keno,” and “loto,” and “roulette,” played with balls and a revolving wheel. ”

“ The proceedings in the elevator and tunnel were the same as on the previous occasions.
Five minutes later I was seated at one of the tables inside, with five hundred dollars' worth of chips before me, gambling as I never had gambled before in my life. The game into which I went first was straight poker. I chose it because it was the card game with the highest stakes of the evening. I played carefully, yet with a desperation that meant I should win, given an even break in the luck.
That even break did not come to me at the straight poker table. ”

“ Although playing cards led to gambling, and to forms of dissipation which required restraint,37 their general use was not an unmixed evil. To the common people, they were a means of education; a circuitous and a dangerous means, no doubt, but not the less effectual. The medieval churl whose ignorance was so dense that he failed to see the advantages of education, and who would have refused to learn his letters by any persuasion, did perceive that there was amusement in playing cards, and did take the trouble to learn the games. ”

“ A ping-pong board was set up in the billiard-room. On a table at one side were enough bats to stock a shop. I took the one she recommended, and we began.
Ping-pong is a loathsome game. I have always said it, and always shall. At home we played it on the dining-room table. The boys made sport of me. They used to declare in derision, that I played "pat-ball." I should have liked some of them to have played with Margaret. She would have played with them, or I err. I thought the serves had come in with disgusting swiftness at lawn-tennis--they were nothing compared to her serves at ping-pong. ”

“ Because one night I took him to the College Clubbe, a gambling joint on the outskirts of town. He looked awful in a rented dinner jacket; the smartly garbed croupiers laughed when he walked into the casino. But he who laughs last, laughs last. We moved to the roulette table and watched for a few minutes.
Finally red came up three times running. So when the croupier called for bets, I laid a couple chips on the black. Hank frowned. As the white ball rattled around in its groove he reached out suddenly, moved my chips to the other side of the board, to the red. ”

“ Examine the dice, gents; examine the box. If any gent had any doubts at all about the dice being straight, all he had to do was to examine them. There they lay, gents, honestly and openly on the table before the one-eyed man, his bony hand hovering over them caressingly.
Gents examined them freely. Nearly every player who put money down–secure in that egotistical valuation of one’s own shrewdness which is the sure-thing-man’s 51 bank and goldmine and mint–rolled the dice, weighed them, eyed them sharply. Then they bet against the one-eyed man–and lost. ”

“ Women, wine, fame, the table, — even ambition, sate now and then; but every turn of the card and cast of the dice keeps the gamester alive: besides, one can game ten times longer than one can do any thing else. I was very fond of it when young, that is to say, of hazard, for I hate all card games, — even faro. ”

“ The prevalence of a sport or of a game brings into general use the terms of that special amusement. The Elizabethan dramatists, for example, use vy and revy and the other technicalities of the game of primero as freely as our western humorists use going it blind and calling and the other technicalities of the game of poker, which has been evolved out of primero in the course of the centuries. ”